Summary

Let's all sing Elvis Presley's “Viva Las Vegas”

The Good

Die Hard Trilogy 2: Viva Las Vegas is the sequel to Die Hard Trilogy. Although the first game was based on all three movies, this game has a different storyline. Cop John McClane travels to Las Vegas while dealing with terrorists. He also has to rescue hostages that are caught in the line of fire. As the player, you have the option of playing in one of three game modes: Arcade, Movie, and Practice.

Arcade mode is just like playing the first game, where you can select whether you want to play the game in a third-person perspective, first-person perspective, or back to third-person perspective (while driving a car). In the first mode, you need to complete a series of tasks which can include collecting security cards, going to a specific destination, or escaping in a certain amount of time. You can obtain many weapons and different types of grenades and use them to bring down any terrorist that gets in your way. The second mode acts like shooters such as House of the Dead and Time Crisis, where you have to shoot everything in a specific path and reload if you run out of ammo. Finally, the third mode has you driving around different locales, finding and detonating bombs within a certain time limit.

In Movie Mode, you alternate between the three views, and numerous cut-scenes are included that tells the story of McClane's trip to Las Vegas. These cut-scenes enhance the game in a big way. Practice Mode lets you do just that – practice using the three modes so that you learn and get used to them. There is only one level for each of the three modes.

Out of all the three modes, I found Arcade Mode to be the best. There are levels that are exclusive to this mode, they are not available in Movie Mode. In the third-person view, you play a rat which must kill other rats while you complete a series of tasks. In driving mode, you have to pick up and drop off passengers in a taxi, transport prisoners back to the police station, and take accident victims to hospital. But no matter which mode that I played, I always like to ram enemy's cars up the butt and do a lot of damage to their car before I destroy them – similar to what you have to do in Chase H.Q. These extra levels are fun to get through.

You need to explore locales fully if you want to complete tasks. The locales include a prison, a laboratory, Hoover Dam, and Las Vegas casino. The best of these is the prison. It is structured like a real prison, with torture chambers and cells placed through them, security cameras on the ceiling, prisoner shower rooms, and everything you can expect inside a prison. The music in the game is similar to the pumping soundtrack of DHT1, but some music is by actual recording artists, such as Lil' Zane and Black Rob.

The controls perform the same function as in DHT1, except that more buttons can perform extra actions. You will immediately know the controls off by heart if you have played DHT1 and got used to it. The sound effects are excellent. Although terrorists no longer have a greeting message, but depending on what he does during the game, McClane has a variety of lines such as “Come to papa, scumbag” (when he encounters a terrorist), “Nothing Personal” (when he shoots a terrorist), and “Oh yeah!” and “This should come in handy” (when he picks up a new weapon).

The Bad

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The Bottom Line

Die Hard Trilogy 2: Viva Las Vegas is not related to the Die Hard movies in any way. It instead follows McClane's trip to Las Vegas. The game still consists of the three playing modes like in the first DH1, but there are also three other modes, and there are differences to these. Cut-scenes can be viewed in the Movie mode, and the game alternates between the three playing modes. There are some exclusive levels in Arcade mode, which are quite bizarre. In conclusion, there is so much to do in DHT2, more places to see, and more things to do in the game, and for this reason, this game is worth playing.